Former Russian President Boris Yeltsin, who buried the former
Soviet Union and then led Russia through its chaotic first years of
independence, died yesterday aged 76, the Kremlin said.
"Today, at 15:45 (1145 GMT) Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin died in
the Central Clinical Hospital as a result of a deteriorating
cardio-vascular problem," said a Kremlin spokeswoman.
Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet president, whom Yeltsin
effectively forced from office, paid tribute to his achievements,
and noted his shortcomings. "I express the very deepest condolences
to the family of the deceased, on whose shoulders rest major events
for the good of the country, and serious mistakes," Gorbachev
said.
Yeltsin had for years been dogged by heart problems that
required multiple heart bypass surgery while he was still in
office. His deteriorating health ultimately forced him to anoint
Vladimir Putin as his successor and step aside seven years ago.
Yeltsin ruled Russia from 1991 to the last day of 1999, when he
handed over power to Putin. He was the first Russian leader to step
down voluntarily.
Born into a poor peasant family in an industrial region in the
Ural mountains, Yeltsin lived with his family in one room of a
wooden hut.
He studied civil engineering and rose to become a successful
construction manager before switching to work for the local
Communist Party.
Gorbachev, looking for thrusting managers to re-invigorate
Soviet rule, summoned him to Moscow to become the capital's party
chief. He was sacked for his maverick style but in 1989 he was
elected to the new Soviet Congress of People's Deputies and in June
1991 he was elected president of Russia -- still within the Soviet
Union -- in a landslide.
Two months later, he faced down tanks in the Moscow streets, and
six months after that, he signed a treaty with the leaders of
Ukraine and Belarus disintegrating the Soviet Union altogether.
Yeltsin, triumphant, became president of a sovereign Russia.
World leaders responded quickly yesterday to Yeltsin's death,
calling him a personal friend and praising him as a courageous
fighter during the Soviet Union's dramatic change that marked the
end of the Cold War.
The EU and the NATO alliance hailed Yeltsin as a healer of the
Cold War divide.
(China Daily April 24, 2007)
